Affiliate redirects

[josh]

Sydney,

I know you've covered this in the course, but I'm still a little confused by affiliate redirecting. For instance, I am building one new adsense site a week, but I'm also making it a goal to get one new affiliate auction up per day on eBay, so that I can quickly identify the best niches before I put a site up. I plan on using mostly clickbank products.

My question is, let's say I'm promoting a site called golfswingtips.com on clickbank (I'm not). When they give me my affiliate code, it will be something like golfswingtips.com?hop=(username). Is it okay to just have the links in the e-book say golfswingtips.com, and then send them right to my affiliate page, or should I actually take out my own domain name and redirect it to my affiliate tracking code so they can't see the affiliate code when hovering over the link? They or course will still be able to see the affiliate code in the address bar after they've clicked through.

Obviously, if I put up one new affiliate auction in a new niche each day, the money for the domain names will add up pretty quickly, but if that's what I have to do, I'll do it. Which do you recommend? Thanks a lot.

[Techie]

You really should use sort of redirection system because you want to force users to have to visit through you first, if possible.

You could buy a domain and use web redirection. We have a custom redirection system that we will be building into DrippingPower.com although that doesn't help you in the here and now. It will be a multiple domain system.

We actually use it to redirect our ebooks using the domain of the tier B or C site.

[josh]

Jeremy,

Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure that's what I was supposed to do, just verifying it. I actually use IPower for web hosting, and redirecting is pretty simple with them. My only concern was the expenses involved, but if that's the best way, that's what I'll do.

[Sydney]

You absolutely must use some redirection if you're using anything but an actual web page - like a pdf or a Word doc. Why? Because affiliate programs/links come & go. Let's say you've sold/given away 5,000 copies of an ebook - and the affiliate program goes out of business or cuts you off or whatever. Now what? There are 5,000 useless links out there!

But, if you use a redirect system, you can change that useless link in a matter of seconds.

In other words, you aren't dependent on someone else. Don't give another person power over your money-making efforts.

[Techie]

It can not be stated enough that you should use a redirection system that is under your control. The one that will be added into DrippingPower.com will end up being hosted on your site(s). You should always approach systems from the angle of what will happen if the system goes away?

This is one of the key components to the way I program. For example in DrippingPower all articles are hosted on your site(s) and not our system. You get the credit and if the system stops (not that we have any plans :-)) the articles are safe on your site(s).

You should keep this in mind for redirection. I personally would avoid services like tinyurl. What happens if tomorrow they decide to shutdown or are bought out? Where will your business be then if you rely on their redirection?

[Sydney]

Jeremy & I have learned the hard way about redirection!!! :mad:

In addition to what he said above, there is another reason not to use services like "tinyurl" and that is that you want the customer to see your site name. Which would you prefer if you were a customer?

http://httgreatsportscards.com/redirect.html

http://tinyurl.com/redirect.html

You definitely want the customer to consciously or subconsciously see your website name over and over again.